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Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Adding this post today because a) I don't know how to set posts up to post later. b) I will be taking mum and dad for more tests, doctor appointments etc c) If I don't do it now I will forget.

I had coloured in this beautiful image from A Day for Daisies a couple of weeks ago and was wanting to make it into a card. Its of course for a wedding, don't have any coming up therefore I needed an excuse. Found a Challenge.

Here's the card I made.

This one I added so you can see the silver card behind the image also cause it shows the sparkle in the little buckle, I love that buckle.

Okay this photo shows the colouring which was with copics. I'm new to trying to use grey for shadow on white and got a bit carried away but still liked the picture when I finished it so decided to use it anyway. I stamped with this wonderful sentiment.

Then of course I made a mistake. I had some of those little peal off hearts made from miniature little gems and thought ohhh I could stick one over the other like joined hearts. No! No! No! It looked cheap and tacky and I fiddled and fiddled then decided it had to come off and of course so did the card stock.

I didn't want to cut the panel down and looked through my stash and saw these beautiful metal buckles that looked stylish. Hunted through the new used ribbon stash and found some lovely shear ribbon threaded it through twice and joined on the back panel. This meant I had to add dimension foam tape to lift the panel a little but it worked and I was happy.

I love making cards that have something to do with the beach or summer.

This is another card I made but forgot to take a photo of till we got to my sons house so had to find a spot and take a photo with my phone.

This was totally an idea that fermented for a bit then all came together to make me happy. The panel was made using Distress Inks blended, blues and a little bit of green. First I stamped the waves and embossed with white embossing powder. My blending was quite light for once.

The surf boards were stamped from the same set and I used ink pads "Kaleidacolor" with five colours. I can't remember when I bought these but they are still brilliant to use and I love the colours in each ink pad. I think I have about 6 different selections. Anyhooo I did one with the blue/greens and one with the orange/yellows then I used the Die cut that goes with the stamp set. Don't look too close or you will see where I am still trying to line those buggers up with the stamped image :)

Stamped 'Happy' and used the PTI Birthday Die. Love this one I do.

Finished the card off with a couple of teeny weeny shells we found on the beach.

Thought I would also enter this in another challenge I found today. I love digital stamps but in this instance I have used a rubber stamp and from what I read this is ok, or is it okay to use a digital??? from another company, well will have to wait and see.

Sunday, 24 May 2015

and instantly thought of a digital stamp I have, so I decided to make a card for this challenge. It was very simple, coloured with copics then cut it and the next two layers with stitched dies. Added the sentiment with charcoal Hero Arts ink and a gem. Love that the layer next to the card is the same chevron pattern. But just not sure if the image is too big to then consider the card CAS. I was going to do another mat under the image to make it more like the card but felt it was getting too busy so left as it is. The digital stamp is another of Mo's and I can't believe this is the first time I have coloured it up. Yes its not three separate dogs but honestly this was what theMUSE card made me think of.

I'm not sure about this but I think I can add this card to the next Challenge as it was done the day after the Challenge started I just didn't see it. So I want to add to Addicted to CAS: Challenge #64 - Animal

This is one of those cards that springs into being because you have an idea. As you all know I am new to challenges, and yes I am finding it hard to keep track and decide what to enter. This card came about because I saw a Challenge (somewhere out there!!!!) about using the negative from a die cut.

I thought about it, remembered this beautiful piece that was just sitting in the die cut tray and yes a light went on. The original piece is a

Daisy Print Background Rubber Stamp - Deep Red Stamps

3 x 4 I heat embossed with white embossing powder. This was stamped onto watercolour paper. So then I just made the paper very wet and added different colours from my Peerless Watercolours. Of course they are my favourite colours, pink orange yellow. Then the panel sat there for ages cause I couldn't decide what to do with it. I then got the large LOVE die and cut it out from this panel. It is beautiful, but then I didn't want to throw away what was left so it just sat in the die cuts pile.

Well this card sprang from that. Added the panel to a piece of gold cardstock. Cut the card down in size so it looked balanced. Added to the white card stock but felt it was lacking so I blended orange colour Distress Ink on the card, dark outer edge and lightened as it moved in.

Wanted more than just LOVE and found this sentiment in amongst a collection of little sayings stamps and thought, perfect.

'Love the little things'.

Added three gems, each a colour that was on the embossed panel.

So after all that I couldn't find the challenge I had seen, it was obviously too late so I just put it aside. Decided to share it today as its too nice just to sit on my desktop.

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

This was such a simple card to make. The image is a digital image I got so long ago I can't remember from where. Its been sitting in amongst all my print ups needing to be coloured and just waiting for the right inspiration. This Simon Says Challenge was it. I loved the colours. Used the two pinks on my flowers, the two greens on the little flowers and the blue on the vase.

Then I used my stitches mats to cut the three layers and to impress the outline of the card.

Added a Winnie & Walter hello die layered four times and coloured the pearl dots to match.

First attempt after I finished painting my stamped image ended up in the bin. Next one I won't throw away cause I can use the back to watercolour something else as its good quality watercolour paper.

Next one I finished and felt it was a bit pale asI had white embossed on watercolour paper and yellow flowers , well just wasn't happy. One of those mornings so okay time to stop painting and go copics. This is the result

I stamped this flower which is a Hero Art stamp, an oldie but just love it. Has such an elegance about it. So I stamped on linen card stock, coloured with copics. Added some yellow sparkles (the word is gone) and stamped Anniversary in Dark Grey Hero Art Ink. Finished it off with a die cut 'happy' from Winnie & Walter (love their font style).

I knew there was another challenge I wanted to enter this in but I still haven't found a system that keeps track of what I see. I write so many lists I get confused and it was just a reminder came up on feedly that I saw the blog that inspired my yellow flowers in the first place. I have just enough time to add this to the Always Playing with Paper: The Challenge #35 Using the one flower made me think of something in a vase and of course the yellow. so this is my card from the inspiration photo.

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

I love how this card has turned out. I am going to do a great big pile of these in different colours I just love the look and may even try doing a shaker card which is where I saw the idea first.

I saw a couple of cards that were my inspiration and convinced me I needed this die. The first one is a shaker card made by the very talented Toni Maddox at Frankie Helps Craft. I was totally smitten but couldn't image doing a shaker card, not yet anyway.

Then I saw Diana's card on her blog Yours Truly by Diana and loved the idea of the black behind the white notes.

Of course I had to use my favourite colours that are pink and yellow blending into orange in the middle - blended distress inks. Took me a while to work out what had to be cut first to get the right look with in the die cut stitched circle.

Now if you look carefully you will see my usual, yes I made a mistake and it didn't show till I took a photo then I thought it was the light and went back and looked at the card and its like 'how did I manage to do that'. Anyhooo side on you can see the black layer for the music die cut. used my favourite stamp 'You Are My Sunshine' and wander around singing for a bit. Add three little sparkles and its all finished.

Now I want to add this to a challenge but I don't know if its considered too close to the original which was Toni's so after a bit of a ponder I will enter and if its not the right thing to do I hope someone lets me know and I will remove the link.

Challenge I am adding it to is CASology:Week 146: MUSIC cause there are music notes and the name of a song. No I'm not I was too late, lol, what a nut. And not a challenge to enter it in.

Monday, 18 May 2015

I suddenly decided at 10.30 I wanted to make a card with die cuts for a challenge. Now to find it!!!

Anyway I have used a Papertrey Die cut for the main shape, once in grey and once in gold then inlaid the gold back in. I really like the look but a photo at 11pm does not really lend itself to great light. The Happy Birthday is actually cut out in a Teal blue card stock and the dots are the same colour but the photo has ended up washing out the sentiments and darkening the enamel dots. Lesson for today - craft and photos during the day or at least wait till daylight for photos.

The Birthday die is also Papertrey and has a stamp to match it. The Happy die which I feel really suits it is a Whimsey Stamps Die.I have layered each die up 3 times to give a bit of life to the words.

I made this card for my granddaughters first birthday and forgot to take a photo. So had to improvise and take a photo with my phone camera on the way to the party. Don't know if the photo does it justice but I hope you enjoy.

The little girl is a digital stamp from Mo's Digital Pencil. Thought it was perfect for a first birthday but just to add to it I also added a birthday cake (another digital stamp, can't think of the name will have to think on that as I have a few its just evading me at the moment). I coloured in with Copics and had limited choice as my inks needed refilling and I was waiting on refills to arrive.

Used a die cut to cut out the layer for the coloured in image and next size up for the pink cardstock background. Placed this on the white card base which has a lovely texture to it and is actually larger than the average card but was needed as I had lots to add.

The two glitter strips are double sided tape with Martha Stewart glitter added and an enamel pale pink flower.Added three little pink enamel dots, felt it needed it but then worried it was too much but took late, they were holding fast so three dots it is.

Wanted to personalise the card so did digital sentiment and layered up with pink cardstock. The blurry image in the background is where the card is resting on my bag and I used the blur tool in Photoshop to make it less defined.

Wednesday, 13 May 2015

Is this a cutie or what!. I love how this has turned out. Started out, yes again, as a one layer card but after colouring the Penny Black hedgehog with copics and being ultra happy I moved onto the Bee.

Ahh yes the bee, well its hiding under the balloon die cut. My copics were just too thick and the bee ended up looking like a mutated monster bee getting ready to attack my hedgehog. I didn't want to cut the hedgehog out as I had used thick cardstock and it would be too hard to cut around and really I loved how the mound of grass and flowers looked so I put on my thinking cap.

Of course this meant whatever covered the bee was going to be in the hedgehogs personal space. First I stamped and coloured in the beautiful little bird from Purple Onion. Cut it out and placed him but he was just took close so I thought word bubble but decided on small balloon. So die cut the balloon, blended with Distress inks with pink ink and tried to leave one side lighter for light shining on.

Found the perfect sentiment 'Hello Sweet Friend'. Then instead of attaching thread or trying to draw a line I used a swirl line from a Papertrey Stamp set. For such a small card I managed to use four different stamp sets. Added the balloon with dimension foam tape to give a bit of lift and curved the balloon shape a bit before sticking down.

Here it is slightly side, I'm really happy with the end result and decided to enter this in the Pile it on Challenge : Cute Animal

I decided to also enter this card in the Papertake weekly Challenge :In the Garden. With my hedgehog playing in the grass and flowers with his friend I feel this fits the bill. Hope I'm not stretching things here but its all part of the learning.

I had previously cut out a whole pile of these wonderful big sentiments 'Thanks'. Lots of white layers and then others from sheets of watercolour cardstock that I had coloured with Inktense Pencils and blended with water.

This one is a mix of yellows and oranges. Love these die cuts because the negative can be used as well.

With this card first I used the Scor-pal to do a pattern on the card stock, first in one direction then in the other.

Found this really wonderful yarn that is a mix of yellows and oranges so it was perfect for this card. I put a small slit in the top of the card to feed the yarn through and tied it off behind the rectangular strip.
The long strip with different colours of orange and yellow card stock was a pain to make, an idea I had seen years ago at an on line class but if anything can go wrong it did. The card I saw in the online class looked so easy and straight forward but it didn't turn out that way for me. Needless to say I made something because I was stubborn enough to have to do something with all the little weeny squares I cut out. If you click on the card for close up you will see all the errors, glossy accents that covers some of the squares and not others and glue I managed to get on the card as I placed the sentiment. Gotta love it when it just doesn't work. Anyway added a strip of gems that came in the pattern you see.

Saturday, 9 May 2015

Mo's Digital Pencil is having an Anything Goes Challenge. I love, no I adore Mo's images. I love colouring in with pencils, watercolours, Distress Inks, Inktense Pencils, Chalks really anything that lets me colour. Check this one out.

Now I was going to use a couple of die sentiments, I have so many cut out and then I thought I should probably cut them out to match the mats. So I cut out more cause once you start cutting out in one colour its like well there is spare there so should do this word and that word. Anyway got them all cut out then looked at the size of what I wanted to add and they just wouldn't fit. Then the brain decides ok one die cut and one stamped and then I really looked at this image and thought this girl really has attitude and it just doesn't go with Happy Birthday. Maybe 16th Birthday or Birthday Girl or.....but really she isn't what I think of for birthday.

Really she's 'cool' ' a dude' 'cool dude' 'attitude' so my stamp 'You Rock!' was much better. Stamped in a Hero Art Grey Ink. Placed a greyish gem that has lots of sparkle yet it has none here so you will just have to trust me. Stuck each layer with a tilt and last layer with dimensional tape for a bit of lift.

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

I haven't made a tag before so I thought I would have a go at it for the 'Tag your It' Challenge.

I had white embossed some card stock with this circle stamp from Obsession Impression and then blended with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Then finished off with a spray of glimmer mist. It has been sitting there for a while, loved the look just couldn't think what to do with it.

Then this morning I thought 'Lets make a tag' and it all fell into place.

I cut with the stitches tag - largest then cut the oval out at the top. Used some silver thread and made the piece for the top so it can be attached to something. I had previously cut out lots and lots of starts in all different colours and glitters and felt the silver worked for it perfectly.

Then read thru all my sentiment dies and stamps and decided I really liked this one. Just looking at the tag you can't really see that well but the colours start at orange to pink to purple to blue and look brilliant and the shimmer is wow.

Stamped in black on a bit of scrap velum and cut into banner shape and just glued where ever the ink would cover it. Placed the big stars flat on the tag and the smaller ones lifted slightly with dimensional tape.

Sunday, 3 May 2015

I had just finished dinner, was looking through the different blogs on Feedly and noticed the CAS.ology Challenge Week 144: Flight and an idea just jumped into my head.

And here it is. It worked and for the first time I did a layout on a piece of paper and stamped till it was right for me. My first perfectly one layer CAS card - wahoooo.

So simple to do, all the stamps are from the same set a Papertrey Inks set. First time I have inked them up - naughty me as I have had them and just had to have them a longing time.

Used the Hero Art Ombre Inks, pink and orange combined for the sentiment then pinks for one bird and oranges for the other. Pinks for the swirl. Feels kind of naked, no glitter, no bling, no layers but showed my yes/no person (my son) and his comment was 'Perfect mum, looks really good, nice and simple'. Why thank you son.

Here's the card for mum for Mothers Day which is next weekend but I don't have to worry. Mum doesn't go on computers, not computer say at all so no chance she will see before Mothers day.

This was another one of my attempts to start out one layer but then it just took on a life of its own. Fist I masked off a section and used distress inks pink and orange and blended them towards each other. Flicked a couple of drops of water to add some texture then of course I had to spray with shimmer spray. Did this panel a week a go to give it time to dry properly and not spread ink as I have a habit of doing.

I had been playing with my Uniko Stamp set and stamped and white embossed on vellum. Managed to miss one section on the front on flower (gerber or daisy?) on every one I stamped, this was before I got my Misti :). Anyway they were just sitting there so I coloured the back of the vellum with copics a couple of shades of pinks and oranges.

Sat and cut them all out. Love the look, fiddled around a bit and the card just looked right with just the two flowers and left of the leaves, it just worked for me.

Now I set up to stamp 'MUM' sentiment on the outside as I planned to stamp all the other inside. Used the Misti, still managed to get a bit of stray ink. Did it in black and hated it straight away.

So I die cut a tag, used the mist and ink much more carefully and used Charcoal Grey - Hero Art ink. Perfect or was for me. Added some twine that is coloured in pinks and another piece coloured in oranges. Then a few enamel gems in both colours.

Inside I used the stamps from Stamplorations (Mom subway art builders). I used the new Hero Art Ombre ink pads pinks and oranges meeting in the middle. Just chose some of the words, not all and of course had to take out the mom words as we say MUM.

I think mum will like this, though they are my favourite colours not her's. I tried to use mum's but it just didn't work for me so maybe next time.

I'm off to mum and dad's at the crack of dawn, well 6am actually so it will still be dark. Mum has another medical appointment and I travel to Canberra to do the medical appointments with mum and dad to be their memory and question person.

Its mum's birthday this week then Mothers Day next Sunday so I thought I better make a couple of cards to let my mum know how much I love her.

So this post is for mum's birthday and here's the card.

I was hoping if I took a photo slightly side on we might see the sparkle from the most I sprayed on the panel but no can't see it. You will just has to trust that it looks good. I coloured this panel a while ago for The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge but hadn't used it. Now I have. Actually I think the colour looks better in this photo than the one below.

Had an idea and went with it and of course it is really a very simple card, used a die to cut the curve in the panel (ooops the washi tape stuck to the watercolored panel and no matter how careful I was it removed painted and embossed sections, so mack to add a bit of paint here and there cause I didn't want to cut it dow any more. Fixed it pretty well, I know its there and of course now you know its there!!)

Then looked through my birthday sentiments - all 101 and of course none were thin enough to go in the gap or would curve so off to the computer. Made a computer generated sentiment and of course I had to play around in Adobe Illustrator getting the right curve etc etc.

Now it becomes easy. Glued the watercolored panel to the sheet with the computer generated sentiment then attached to the pink cardstock with dimensional foam to lift the panel a little.

Finished off with a couple of gems.

The watercolored panel is a Hero Arts background stamp (one of my favourite) and all watercoloring was with Tim hotly distress Inks, only three colours used just layered to give shadow's.

I thought I would enter this is Squirrels World of Craft -Antique Roadshow Challenge- here they are asking us to use old stamps. I do believe this Hero Arts one fits the challenge.

Saturday, 2 May 2015

I love the Art Impression stamps. My one regret is that they make some stamps exclusively for stores over in America that I can't source. Always enjoy a bit of humour and have a number of the girlfriend stamps.
I finally got my hands on the second lady in her swimmers so could make a card with the two of them. Her we go:

I did plan to try making this a one layer card, no bling or extra panels but.....yes I forgot about the sentiments placement.

This time I knew what sentiments I wanted to use but didn't think about that when I stamped the ladies. If I had stamped them just that little bit closer together, but I was thinking of personal space you know, don't stand in my space!!! Anyway I ended up cutting speech bubbles and having to resize slightly to fit and they turned out ok. Then I needed to colour the speech bubbles slightly as they were a different white to the white of the card and when I took the photo it stood out like dirty linen.

A light coat of blue fixed that and I actually felt it improved the card as well. All colouring was with copics. I just love the idea of two old friends catching up at the beach and telling it as it is. So simple.

INSPIRATION

My inspiration over the years has been a number of different people who's blogs I have followed on a regular basis for many many years.

I have met a number of wonderful women who were always happy to help me with suggestions, links, ideas and sometimes just a kind word.

I love this world I have been welcomed into and there are so many I wish I could thank personally, just to let you know how much I appreciated your help and praise but the list is so long I honestly don't know where to start.

I will always try to acknowledge where I saw an idea or when I have CASEd or CAS. Because I have been looking for so long I am going to have memory gaps or lost links so please forgive me.

If you see something I have made and think you know the link please share with me so I can properly acknowledge the person who inspired me.